There is an experiment I remember from my student years – the one through which the phenomenon of “learned helplessness” was discovered. It was conducted with dogs that were subjected to a series of electric shocks under the condition that they could not control them. Whatever they did, they always received the dose of the negative experience.
After that, the conditions of the experiment were changed, and the dogs already had the possibility of escaping the electric shock by jumping over a barrier, but they did not do so. They remained inside the cage, and although freedom was only one jump away, they stayed passive. In contrast, the dogs in the control group, which had not been subjected to uncontrollable electric shocks, had no difficulty jumping over the barrier when exposed to the negative stimulation of the current.
In short, we have two groups of dogs that were subjected to negative stimulation by electric shocks, but when given the opportunity to avoid it, one group remained passive, while the other jumped over the barrier and escaped. The only difference was in the dogs’ prior experience – those that had not had the opportunity to influence the source of stress continued to behave passively even when the conditions had already changed.
What is interesting is that the researchers began this experiment with a different aim, but what they came across turned out to be more valuable, because they saw in it an explanation of the causes of reactive depression and chronic failure.
The definition of learned helplessness is “a psychological state in which people behave as helpless, although they have the power to change a given circumstance.”
I constantly come across examples of learned helplessness in life – when a person can do something to change a situation, but does nothing and endures. The most painful is when I see learned helplessness at the level of society – when entire groups of people endure situations that they could, in fact, change.
For example, our national psychology has produced sayings such as “A bowed head is not cut by the sword,” or expressions like “keep your head down,” that is, endure and remain silent. Such imprints in our collective memory had their reasons in the past and saved the heads of many Bulgarians during Ottoman rule, but the times are different now. The barrier has already been removed; we can step out of the cage and change things.
In one way or another, all of us carry the experience of the trauma of learned helplessness. This trauma is probably part of the lesson in developing humility and patience. It would be a great mistake, however, to miss the other lesson as well – the lesson of the power not to give up. Unlike the dogs, we have a mind that can be conditioned, but can also be reconditioned. It is enough to raise our heads to see that there is no longer a scimitar hanging over them. And to jump over the barrier.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
